Last Sunday was a rather eventful day I must say, it was my first time shooting for a client since I have been living here in the Pacific Northwest. While I was still heavily into retouch work, having garnered a few loyal clients, I was not really doing much behind the camera work. I had been spending a lot of time doing my research on the market here and as far as photography goes it is fair to say that is beyond saturated. So of course I would have to shake things up regarding my work and pretty much reinvent my overall business.
For any business to be successful it has to adapt to change and it has to always improve on its products and services. One of the big changes that I made was to change my website and business name. I had to bid a sad adieu to the ©Arclightstudios moniker and proudly welcome my new business name ©Photographer Simon Mott. If you are wondering why not Simon Mott Photography, well it's because doing that is rather typical and common and those are two traits I have never been fond of doing.
Redesigning my website was a task but I am quite satisfied with the outcome. The one thing I wanted to achieve with the new website design is to make it feel more personable, which is why I finally opted to add my name to it. My aim is to now to concentrate more on niche areas in portrait work. While I loved shooting fashion and enjoyed my work with models, I was finding myself becoming very starved creative wise. Shooting models in swimsuits in all honesty does not really require much in the area of creativity. I have always said that I want to produce work that stimulates the mind and senses. So I will be working more heavily on some very personal projects in the weeks to come.
Back to my shoot though before I totally derail myself, so my client was a massage therapist, who came across some of my work and was interested in some shots of what seems to be an upcoming trend of daughters doing portrait sessions in their mothers wedding dresses. At first I did not get it nor did I know how I felt about it, was it weird or was it strange? Then I thought there is something of a poignant coming of age subtext in there. Same as if it were a young boy in his fathers wedding suit so it started dawning on me how cool of a concept this was.
I liked the idea more and more after speaking with Monika, hearing her excitement and seeing some of the images she pinned, I had a clear notion of what it is she wanted. I have always found it important as a photographer to get a clear and complete understanding of what direction and vision it is that your clients are looking to achieve. I see the relationship between me and my clients as something of a relationship between a Director and Cinematographer. Combined they aid in giving the overall look and feel to a movie. So once I had this clear understanding the next step was to find a suitable location. The challenge with that notion was, this is not Nassau, where I had complete knowledge of where all the cool spots are and how to get to them.
I had heard about Legion Park which was down in Everett but I had never been there and did not have the opportunity to scout it prior to the shoot, which was kind of shaky with me because I always like to have some notion before hand of where my set up will be, my back drop and what obstacles I would have to deal with. So I met with Monika, her husband and their daughter who would be my subject and was so adorable, went through the looks and props and decided to head on out to the location.
When I arrived at the park I was very surprised at how awesome a spot it was. To think after all this time such an awesome spot was a mere ten minute drive from where I lived. It offered an awesome panorama of the Cascade mountains and the Puget Sound, to say the view was just eye dropping would be a disservice. After walking the location I marked the spots that would be my shooting sets and got to making the magic happen.
It was an awesome time and Peyton was such a spectacular and cooperative subject who just knew how to hit her poses. Every time I would flub by having a misfire or the batteries from my Cyber Commander drop out (I misplaced the battery cover) she would laugh and point at me. She was such a cute kid and her dad Colin was very helpful in assisting me with holding my lights. It was a a great shoot and it felt good getting back into the swing. Below are a few images from the shoot. Hope you enjoy them and stay tuned. More good stuff will be coming soon.
